Mobility After independence, migration from Mithila, Vajji and Anga ceased to be organised mainly around a small number of older eastern corridors. Calcutta/Kolkata remained important, but Delhi and Mumbai entered household migration strategies with growing force. The two metropolitan systems were not interchangeable. Delhi was closer by rail, located within the broad Hindi linguistic zone and increasingly surrounded by a National Capital Region of construction sites, workshops, warehouses and service jobs. Mumbai was farther away, more expensive to inhabit and embedded in a different linguistic and industrial history, yet its manufacturing, construction, transport, hospitality and informal-service economy created durable opportunities for migrants willing to bear higher entry and housing costs. The central historical change was therefore a widening of the mobility map. Households that had once depended on one destination could now compare wages, recruitment chains, travel time, housing, risk and the availability of relatives or co-villagers across several cities. This chapter follows that post-independence diversification without treating every migrant as a permanent settler or every movement as an escape from agriculture. Metropolitan work often remained part of a bi-local household economy in which earnings, care, land, debt, schooling and social obligations were distributed across source and destination. The following chapters will separately examine Punjab and Haryana, Nepal–India circulation, the Gulf, remittances, urbanisation and diaspora institutions. 99.1 Post-independence migration widened the metropolitan map rather than replacing older corridors For much of the colonial period, Calcutta and the eastern industrial belt had occupied a privileged place in the migration geography of north and east Bihar. Independence did not abruptly dissolve that connection. Instead, Delhi and Mumbai were added to a growing portfolio of destinations. Improved long-distance rail services, the expansion of public works, construction, industrial estates and urban services, and the multiplication of village-to-city information networks made repeated travel to western and northern metros more feasible. The historical significance of this change lies in diversification. A household could send one member to Kolkata, another to Delhi, and later a younger relative to Mumbai, Surat or another city. Migration therefore became less a single corridor than a distributed risk strategy. The same village could contain several destination histories, and the preferred city could change between generations as sectors rose, declined or became harder to enter. 99.2 Delhi’s expansion after 1947 created an unusually large and varied demand for labour Delhi’s transformation after Partition combined state building, refugee resettlement, road and housing construction, commercial growth and the enlargement of central-government institutions. These processes created demand not only for skilled public employment but also for masons, helpers, loaders, drivers, vendors, domestic workers, guards, workshop labour and a wide range of petty services. Migrants from Bihar entered this economy through very different doors. Some arrived with educational credentials and sought clerical or professional work; many more entered through construction and informal employment where recruitment depended on contractors and known contacts. The city’s importance to Mithila, Vajji and Anga therefore cannot be reconstructed from government employment alone. The national capital generated an occupational ladder whose lower rungs were often insecure but whose very scale made Delhi a reproducible destination for households with little urban capital. 10031003 GAJENDRA THAKUR 99.3 Rail accessibility and the broad Hindi environment lowered some barriers to entry into Delhi Distance is not merely geographical; it is measured in fares, travel time, information and the possibility of returning during emergencies. Delhi’s rail connection with major Bihar junctions gave it an advantage over more distant western destinations. The broad intelligibility of Hindi also reduced one form of initial uncertainty, although migrants still encountered class-coded speech, bureaucratic language and urban discrimination. A new arrival could more easily ask for directions, negotiate with contractors or search for work than in a city where an unfamiliar language dominated public life. This did not make migration safe. It made Delhi comparatively legible. Once a few men from a village or kin group had established a foothold, the rail corridor and linguistic familiarity could turn one exploratory move into a chain of repeat migration. 99.4 Delhi gradually became a regional labour market extending far beyond the municipal core By the late twentieth century, “Delhi migration” increasingly meant movement into a polycentric National Capital Region. Noida and Ghaziabad to the east, Faridabad to the south and Gurugram to the southwest created new industrial, construction, warehousing and service zones. For migrants, the relevant geography was therefore not the administrative border of the National Capital Territory but the network of worksites, rented rooms, labour chowks and transport connections across NCR. This expansion altered recruitment. A worker could lose a job at one site yet remain within the same regional labour market, or shift from construction to a factory, warehouse, delivery job or guard agency. It also increased commuting burdens and housing insecurity. The metropolis became larger as an employment system than as a civic community in which migrants could claim stable residence. 99.5 Construction became a major gateway occupation because it required large workforces and tolerated rapid turnover Construction has repeatedly absorbed migrants with limited formal credentials because work can be divided among skilled masons, carpenters, electricians and machine operators, semi-skilled helpers and large numbers of casual labourers. Delhi’s expansion, infrastructure projects and the 1982 Asian Games construction cycle are part of this history, but the mechanism continued through later NCR growth. Entry was often mediated by contractors, relatives and village contacts who could place a newcomer quickly. The same mechanism could produce vulnerability: delayed wages, unsafe worksites, arbitrary dismissal and dependence on labour intermediaries. Skills could nevertheless accumulate across projects. A helper might become a mason or specialist, and a successful worker could later recruit others from home. Thus construction was simultaneously a low-threshold labour market and a site where skill, brokerage and small- contracting careers could emerge. 99.6 Workshops, small manufacturing and repair economies provided a second Delhi pathway The post-independence capital also developed dense clusters of small manufacturing, fabrication, plastics, garments, food processing, vehicle repair and other workshop activities. Such units rarely appeared in migration narratives as dramatically as large construction projects, yet they offered year-round employment and opportunities to learn practical skills. Recruitment often took place through personal recommendation rather than open advertisement. For workers from Mithila, Vajji and Anga, this could reduce the cost of urban entry but also tie mobility to narrow occupational networks. Informal manufacturing blurred the line between “industrial worker” and “casual migrant”: a worker might remain for years in the same trade without HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II obtaining a formal contract, provident-fund coverage or stable housing. The persistence of this employment form is central to understanding why metropolitan mobility could be long-term without becoming secure. 99.7 Transport, security, retail and hospitality widened the range of migrant urban work As Delhi’s economy became increasingly service-oriented, migrants entered driving, loading, parking, guarding, cleaning, restaurants, hotels, street vending, retail assistance and logistics. These jobs differed sharply in status and remuneration but shared one feature: the city required labour at hours and locations that formal residential planning did not accommodate. Guards slept at worksites; restaurant workers shared crowded rooms; vendors depended on public space; drivers organised life around vehicles and depots. Urban service employment therefore connected labour mobility to the politics of housing, policing and access to streets. It also created routes for younger migrants who did not identify with agricultural labour or factory work. The expansion of services changed the social image of migration even when insecurity remained. 99.8 Students and educated workers formed a smaller but highly consequential Delhi stream Delhi’s universities, coaching markets, central examinations, hospitals, media institutions and government offices attracted students and credentialed workers from the study region. Their numbers were smaller than the mass of manual and service workers, but their social effects could be disproportionate. A student hostel or rented room could become the first stable urban address for a family; examination success could transform remittance capacity and marriage prospects; alumni and caste/community associations could create information networks that later helped others. Educational migration also widened regional aspirations. Delhi came to signify not only wage work but access to institutions perceived as national rather than provincial. This stream linked Chapter 94’s history of education and mobility with the migration system examined here. Figure 392 — Post-independence migration widened from older corridors into a multi-metropolitan system 99.9 Mumbai entered the regional migration portfolio through a different historical economy Mumbai had long been one of India’s major industrial and port cities, but its relationship with Bihar’s eastern and northern districts differed from Calcutta’s older labour corridor. Post-independence migrants encountered a city shaped by textiles, docks, engineering, transport, construction, film-related services, markets and a vast informal economy. The journey was longer and the cost of residence higher than in many northern destinations. These barriers meant that Mumbai migration often required stronger prior contacts. Once established, however, destination networks could become durable and intergenerational. The historical point is not that Mumbai replaced Delhi or Kolkata, but that it offered a distinct combination of higher 10051005 GAJENDRA THAKUR urban wages, expensive reproduction costs and a wide occupational spectrum. Households compared those trade-offs when deciding whether Mumbai was worth the distance. 99.10 The decline of the old textile-mill order did not end Mumbai’s demand for migrant labour Mumbai’s celebrated textile industry entered a long crisis in the late twentieth century, and mill employment no longer structured the city as it once had. Yet deindustrialisation did not imply a labour-free metropolis. Construction, small manufacturing, transport, markets, restaurants, security, cleaning, repair, logistics and numerous forms of subcontracted service work expanded or persisted. For migrants this mattered because destination histories could survive the decline of the sector that had first attracted them. A kin network initially organised around factory or dock work could redirect newcomers toward construction or services. Migration systems therefore possess institutional memory: lodging arrangements, recruiters, travel knowledge and trust can outlive particular industries. 99.11 Real-estate construction made Mumbai’s growth dependent on workers who could rarely afford formal housing The contradiction between building the city and being unable to inhabit its formal housing market is especially sharp in Mumbai. Migrant construction workers often lived on worksites, in temporary shelters or in peripheral rental arrangements far from employment. High land values and redevelopment intensified the importance of shared rooms, commuting and informal settlements. The cost of urban reproduction shaped household strategy. Some migrants kept spouses and children in Bihar because family housing in Mumbai was unaffordable; others accepted long commutes to maintain a family residence. Wage comparisons between Delhi and Mumbai therefore require attention to rent, transport and food. A nominally higher wage could yield a similar or smaller remittance after metropolitan costs. 99.12 Security, hospitality, transport and logistics created durable Mumbai service niches Like Delhi, Mumbai’s post-industrial economy relied on large numbers of guards, cleaners, hotel and restaurant workers, loaders, drivers and logistics workers. These jobs were often organised through agencies or subcontractors, making the legal employer difficult to identify from the worker’s perspective. Migrants could remain continuously employed while changing establishments many times. Uniforms, identity cards and fixed shifts might create the appearance of formality without the full bundle of formal employment rights. For households in Mithila, Vajji and Anga, such jobs could nevertheless be attractive because they offered predictable monthly earnings compared with casual agricultural work. The social meaning of “service sector” must therefore include low-paid maintenance and protection work, not only offices and finance. 99.13 Mumbai’s linguistic and cultural environment made adaptation more visible than in Delhi Migrants from Bihar entered Mumbai through Hindi and other north-Indian speech networks but encountered a city where Marathi had strong public and political significance and where multilingualism was part of everyday labour. Language could become both a practical skill and a marker of outsider status. Workers learned enough Marathi for transport, policing, customers or landlords while maintaining Maithili, Angika, Bajjika, Urdu or Hindi within family and migrant networks. This layered language use complicates narratives of assimilation. Migrants could become competent urban residents without abandoning source- region languages, and their children could acquire a different linguistic repertoire from parents who remained bi-local. HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II 99.14 Housing costs made Mumbai networks especially important at the moment of arrival A first job is only one element of migration. The newcomer also needs a place to sleep, knowledge of transport, food on credit, introductions to employers and protection against immediate fraud. Mumbai’s expensive housing magnified the value of a relative, co-villager or trusted intermediary who could provide temporary accommodation. Shared rooms were therefore not merely evidence of poverty; they were migration infrastructure. Their social composition could reproduce caste, religion or locality ties, because people trusted those they knew and because job referrals followed the same lines. Yet urban proximity also created new solidarities across those boundaries. The room, worksite and train compartment were spaces in which inherited identities and practical cooperation coexisted. 99.15 Metropolitan migration remained strongly gendered even as women’s mobility became more visible Labour circulation from rural Bihar to Delhi and Mumbai was historically male-dominated in many low- income corridors, especially where men lived in dormitory-like arrangements and families remained at home. This produced the household effects analysed in Chapters 91 and 92: women carried additional farming, care, budgeting and social obligations while remittance income arrived from the city. Women were never absent from migration. They moved for marriage, family reunification, education, domestic work, services and professional employment, and their independent labour mobility became more visible over time. Official migration categories, however, often record women primarily under marriage or family reasons and can obscure economic activity after movement. A gendered history must therefore distinguish the recorded reason for migration from the work actually performed at destination. 99.16 Delhi and Mumbai produced different settlement patterns but a common condition of partial urban membership Delhi’s peripheral colonies, rented rooms and worksite settlements differed from Mumbai’s dense chawls, slums, site housing and distant suburbs, yet both cities allowed long-term residence without guaranteeing stable civic incorporation. Migrants could possess voter identification in the village, ration entitlements linked to the home household and social obligations that required frequent return. At destination they might lack secure rental contracts, local documentation, affordable schooling or access to neighbourhood institutions. The result was not simply “temporary migration.” Many workers lived for years in a city while remaining institutionally divided between two places. This partial membership is one of the defining features of post-independence internal migration. Figure 393 — Delhi/NCR and Mumbai/MMR became distinct but connected metropolitan migration systems 10071007 GAJENDRA THAKUR 99.17 Migration networks reduced uncertainty but could also trap workers in narrow occupational channels Kinship, village and neighbourhood networks are rational responses to an uncertain labour market. A trusted contact can verify an employer, arrange travel and provide lodging. Over time, however, a network can become an occupational funnel. If the first migrants from a locality enter guarding, masonry, food service or a workshop trade, later migrants may be channelled into the same sector even when they possess different abilities. Contractors can gain power because they control access to both jobs and accommodation. The network therefore has a dual historical role: it lowers migration costs and reproduces segmentation. Mobility within the city often depends on acquiring contacts beyond the original circle, learning new skills or obtaining credentials that allow a worker to exit the first job niche. 99.18 Remittances made metropolitan wages meaningful by connecting them to village budgets The economic importance of Delhi or Mumbai cannot be measured only by the number of migrants residing there. Earnings were repeatedly converted into food purchases, debt repayment, school fees, medical care, house construction, ceremonies, land leases, agricultural inputs and the financing of another migration journey. Bank transfers and mobile payments later accelerated a process once managed through money orders, trusted travellers or cash carried home. Remittance use varied by class. Poor households often used earnings for immediate subsistence and debt, while better-positioned families could invest in education, property or enterprise. The same city wage therefore produced unequal long-term effects. Migration could reduce vulnerability without necessarily generating upward class mobility. 99.19 Return visits kept migrants embedded in agrarian and kinship institutions Festival calendars, marriages, funerals, crop operations, local disputes and elections pulled migrants back toward the source region. Return was not a residual event after the “real” urban career; it was part of the migration system itself. A worker could spend most of the year in Delhi and still participate in decisions about land, schooling or panchayat politics at home. Regular return also refreshed recruitment chains: migrants carried information about wages and vacancies, and prospective workers travelled back with them. This circulation helps explain why long metropolitan residence did not always produce permanent family relocation. The village remained a social-security institution and a place of identity even when a growing share of household cash came from the city. 99.20 Caste, religion and regional identity travelled to the city but did not remain unchanged there Migrants used familiar identities to organise trust, lodging, food and mutual assistance. Caste and religious networks could help locate employers or mediate disputes, and regional associations created ritual and cultural spaces. Yet cities also compelled collaboration across inherited boundaries. Workers shared transport, worksites and rented rooms with people they might not have interacted with closely in the village. Occupational hierarchies could cut across caste rank, and urban anonymity could enable choices that were harder at home. Metropolitan migration therefore neither dissolved caste nor merely reproduced it. It changed the arenas in which status was negotiated, while remittances could feed back into village prestige, marriage negotiations and political influence. HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II 99.21 Migration could generate skill and status mobility, but the ladder was uneven Some migrants accumulated technical skill, learned to negotiate contractors, acquired licences, moved into supervisory work or became small subcontractors, shopkeepers and transport operators. Others remained in casual labour for decades. The difference often reflected more than individual effort. Education, health, initial savings, social contacts, documentation and the stability of the destination sector shaped whether experience could be converted into advancement. A worker who repeatedly lost earnings to illness, rent or wage theft had little capacity to invest in skill. The “new middle classes” discussed in Chapter 95 therefore intersected with migration: salaried employment and educational mobility could make Delhi or Mumbai a platform for class formation, while low-wage migrants sustained the same cities without receiving comparable security. 99.22 Liberalisation after 1991 enlarged service and construction opportunities while deepening subcontracting The economic reforms of the 1990s coincided with rapid metropolitan restructuring. Private construction, commercial real estate, logistics, retail and service employment expanded, while older forms of stable industrial work weakened in many sectors. For migrants, this produced both opportunity and fragmentation. More jobs could be available, yet employment was increasingly mediated by contractors, agencies and short-term arrangements. The workplace became easier to enter but harder to convert into durable social protection. Delhi/NCR’s office, retail and infrastructure boom and Mumbai/MMR’s redevelopment and service economy drew workers into sectors that were dynamic without necessarily being formal. The post-1991 migration regime must therefore be understood as mass urban incorporation through flexible labour rather than straightforward formalisation. 99.23 NCR and MMR made “the city” into a moving target Urban expansion shifted employment outward. A migrant arriving for “Delhi” might work in Noida, Gurugram or Ghaziabad; someone going to “Mumbai” could live or work far from the historic island city. This spatial restructuring changed household calculations. Long commutes raised transport costs, and job switching could require moving residence even within the same metropolitan region. Peripheral worksites sometimes reduced rent but increased isolation from hospitals, schools and established migrant associations. The older model of a destination as one compact city therefore became less useful. Migration increasingly operated across metropolitan regions whose administrative boundaries did not match workers’ daily lives. Figure 394 — Metropolitan migration remained a circular household process rather than a one-way move 10091009 GAJENDRA THAKUR 99.24 Census data reveal migration at scale but understate circulation and multi- local lives The 2011 Census migration tables classify migrants by place of birth or last residence, duration, sex and reason for movement. They are indispensable for locating migration within India’s population structure, but they are less suited to capturing repeated short trips, circular labour or workers who retain a strong home base. A person may be economically dependent on Delhi while still being enumerated in Bihar, or may report one principal reason for moving when work, family and education are intertwined. For this reason, Census data should be read alongside household surveys and field studies. The history of migration is larger than the stock of people counted as migrants at a particular moment. 99.25 Rural Bihar studies show why household surveys remain essential to metropolitan history The Institute for Human Development’s study of rural labour migration from Bihar, based on a census of 6,433 households in villages of Purnia, Madhubani and Gopalganj and a more detailed survey of a sub- sample, demonstrated the value of studying migration from the source household. Such research reveals who leaves, who stays, how costs are financed and how remittances alter local labour markets. It also shows that destination choice is embedded in village-level networks. Although the study districts cannot stand for all of Mithila, Vajji and Anga, the method is important: metropolitan history becomes more accurate when the city is analysed together with the rural households that reproduce its labour force. 99.26 Delhi and Mumbai became emblematic destinations for low-income inter- state migration in the post-COVID evidence base A post-COVID KNOMAD/World Bank survey of low-income workers in Delhi and Mumbai found that roughly three-fourths of the inter-state migrant respondents came from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. This should not be misread as a population share for either metropolis: the survey covered a defined low-income sample, not all residents. Its value lies elsewhere. It confirms how central the Bihar–UP labour reservoir remained to the functioning of two very different metropolitan economies and how similar vulnerabilities— low bargaining power, weak social protection and costly housing—could appear across both. The finding fits the longer history traced in this chapter while requiring careful limits on generalisation. 99.27 The 2020 lockdown exposed the hidden infrastructure of metropolitan labour mobility When workplaces and transport shut during the COVID-19 lockdown, the migrant worker suddenly became visible as a central urban actor. Construction, manufacturing, transport, hospitality and informal services depended on workers who often lacked savings, secure housing or locally portable welfare. The crisis produced mass attempts to return home and revealed how quickly a metropolitan livelihood could collapse when the connection between job, shelter and food was broken. ILO assessments emphasised the disproportionate exposure of informal workers. For households in Bihar, the shock was both urban and rural: remittances stopped while returning workers required food, quarantine, care and new employment. The event did not create migrant precarity; it made an older structure impossible to ignore. 99.28 Remigration after the lockdown demonstrated the structural pull of metropolitan labour markets Return during crisis did not imply a permanent reversal of migration. Many workers later remigrated because source villages could not absorb the same labour at comparable cash incomes. Networks reactivated, HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II employers recalled known workers and households rebuilt interrupted earnings strategies. Some migrants changed destination or sector, showing that mobility had become adaptive rather than tied to one city. The COVID episode therefore belongs within a longer migration history as an extreme rupture that revealed both vulnerability and resilience. It also accelerated debates over portable food entitlements, worker registration and destination-state responsibilities. Figure 395 — Portability has improved faster than full urban citizenship for migrant workers 99.29 Portability reforms reduce some migration penalties but do not eliminate destination vulnerability One Nation One Ration Card allows eligible households to draw foodgrains through portability without surrendering the home-state ration card, addressing one of the most obvious problems faced by mobile families. The e-Shram portal, launched in 2021, created a national database for unorganised workers including migrant workers; by 14 July 2026, the Ministry of Labour and Employment reported more than 31.78 crore registrations. These are important institutional changes, but registration and portability are not equivalent to secure employment. Rental housing, occupational safety, wage enforcement, childcare, schooling, health access and local civic voice remain uneven. The post-independence history of metropolitan migration has therefore entered a new phase in which mobility is increasingly recognised administratively even while full destination citizenship remains incomplete. 99.30 Delhi and Mumbai transformed mobility by making migration multi- destination, multi-sector and recurrent The importance of Delhi and Mumbai in the social history of Mithila, Vajji and Anga lies not in a claim that every district sent equal numbers to both cities. It lies in the widening of household possibilities after independence. Delhi/NCR offered relative proximity, Hindi-language accessibility and an enormous construction-service labour market. Mumbai/MMR offered a more distant and costly but equally diversified metropolitan economy. Both depended on networks, shared housing and remittance circuits; both could enable skill and class mobility; both also exposed workers to informality and partial urban membership. Together they made migration less dependent on the older Kolkata corridor and prepared the ground for the even wider destination system examined in the following chapters, beginning with Punjab and Haryana’s seasonal agricultural labour market. Table 99.1 — Contrasting the Delhi/NCR and Mumbai/MMR migration systems Dimension Delhi / NCR Mumbai / MMR Household implication Distance and Shorter rail corridor; Longer journey; Different entry costs language broad Hindi multilingual Marathi- and adaptation environment Hindi environment burdens 10111011 GAJENDRA THAKUR Dimension Delhi / NCR Mumbai / MMR Household implication Major low-entry Construction, Construction, Networks channel first sectors workshops, transport, manufacturing/services, jobs and skill pathways security, retail, transport, security, hospitality hospitality, logistics Urban form Polycentric NCR Dense MMR with high Administrative borders across multiple states land and commuting do not match daily costs labour markets Housing Peripheral rentals, Shared rooms, Family co-residence worksite rooms, worksites, informal depends heavily on informal colonies settlements, distant rent and commute suburbs Network role Village and kin chains Contacts especially Trust reduces risk but lower search costs important because can reproduce entry and housing are occupational costly segmentation Long-term effect Education, services Sectoral change Migration systems and NCR expansion redirects networks after outlive individual jobs diversify careers industrial decline and industries Crisis and COVID exposed Same vulnerability Food and registration portability dependence on despite different urban are more portable than mobile labour; regime housing and labour portability reforms rights matter